Cactus Club
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WWII - LST 808
Our ship participated in Iwo Jima, and Okinawa Invasions LST 808 was the second landing ship from the top at Iwo Jima. (Mt Suribachi of Joe Rosenthal's famous flag raising photo in the background). Our next invasion was Okinawa on April 1, 1945. We were then stationed in Ie Shima Bay until we were sunk by an aerial torpedo on May 18, 1945. Two days later the grounded hulk was hit by a Kamakazi but were off the ship by then. Here is my story of the night we were torpedoed. ------------------------------------------Dick WWII May 18th, 1945, I was in the engine room of our LST anchored off the coast of IE Shima about 400 miles southeast of Japan. Our ship was providing fresh water and fog oil to the small “radar” ships that were patrolling the waters north of the island.* These boats gave us warning when Japanese planes were coming in to attack our forces. It was almost ten pm. I was doing the work of the Water Tender, Ken Nebilsic, who was down with an illness. Night after night we had air raids that didn’t amount to much. I asked the Officer on the Control Tower to be secured from duty to go to our office and check the records of our fresh water. We were supposed to go down to Okinawa the next day for 100,000 gallons of fresh water. He gave me permission to leave my post. I climbed the ladder to the next deck and stepped into the compartment that was our “office”. No sooner had I twisted the “dog” which sealed the steel door than we were hit. An awful explosion! My head banged off a steel girder. My chest felt like it had been slammed with a giant fly swatter. The floor shook and tilted. I fell. There was no light. I felt for the door and pulled myself up. Twisting the dog lever, I could smell sulphur and smoke. My thoughts went back down to the engine room and the men I had just left. I went back down the rungs of the ladder. Water was up about 3 feet there. What was a neat room with two big gray Marine Diesel engines was a mess of twisted steel. THere was now no overhead or ceiling. I could see the sky. I called out, “Dyer!...Peterson.!..Bowser!” There was no answer and I didn’t expect one. Climbing back up the ladder I went all the way up to the top deck and lifted the hatch. A small flame was burning the tarp that had once covered the hatch over the tank deck. I stepped on it and put it out as it shone like a beacon in the blackness. Captain Stevens was looking down from the Control Tower and he yelled “Who is that?” I told him. He then asked, “How are the men in the engine room?” “They are all dead, sir.” was my reply. All he said was “O My God”. The other ships around us sent small boats to take us ashore. Then they pushed the hulk of our ship on a coral reef. Two days later, a Japanese kamikaze (suicide) plane slammed into the wounded ship which tore the final steel holding the rear half of the ship to the front half. This rear half slipped off the coral reef and shortly after it sank in the bay. I was not a Christian at this time. In thinking back of this event, I realize that God had some purpose for my life. If I had been 15 or maybe 20 seconds longer in that engine room, I would have been with the 6 men who perished. *This was the island where the famous War Correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by a Japanese sniper in 1945. Following is from Captain Stevens log, LST 808: ===The LST 808 war diary, recorded by Captain Stevens, and the official damage report describe what happened to the ship on May 18, 1945 [7]. At 2206, a large Japanese twin-engine plane passed over the stern just above the mast, and a torpedo hit the ship with a terrific explosion about 30 seconds later. Small fires were quickly extinguished, but the explosion killed five men and wounded five others of the LST 808 crew. Another five men aboard from the boat pool died in the explosion, and one wounded man from the boat pool died the next day. With LST 808's main and auxiliary engine rooms wrecked and flooded, two tugs towed the ship to shallow water where she rested on a reef. Most of the crew went ashore at 0300 on May 19. LST 808 had a security watch of only five men on board when the kamikaze plane hit the ship on May 20. Notes Slideshow
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